1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and a method for processing an acceptance of a reservation that is made by a customer who is in a remote place.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, a system is proposed or commercialized that is for processing an acceptance of a reservation that is made by a customer who is in a remote place. For example, Japanese unexamined patent publications No. 6-19929, No. 2001-84418, No. 2002-236832, No. 2002-7826 and No. 2002-279260 and Japanese patent No. 2869583 disclose systems in which a reservation can be made by using a cellular phone by a customer who wants to use a parking lot or a restaurant. In addition, systems in a practical use that accept reservations from customers who are in remote places are disclosed in other documents including “Tabi no madoguchi: a general travel reservation system”, MY TRIP NET CO., LTD., Feb. 20, 2003, [searched on Feb. 20, 2003], the Internet <http://www.mytrip.net/>, “Parking Information”, PARK 24 Co., Ltd., May 30, 2002, [searched on Feb. 20, 2003], the Internet <http://www.times-info.net/pc/reserv/index.html>, and “About implementation of a pin point information delivery trial service ‘Jaran Navi Sapporo’ for cellular phones utilizing high precision positional information”, KDDI Corporation, RECRUIT CO., LTD., NEC Corporation, Apr. 17, 2002, [searched on Feb. 20, 2003], the Internet <http://www.kddi.com/release/2002/0417-1/>.
According to these systems, a customer who wants to use a parking lot, a restaurant or others can make a reservation of a parking space or a seat in advance so that the customer is not required to wait for a long time when he or she arrives at the place. Also, a manager can calculate demands at an early stage, which can be utilized for an effective management.
However, if all the requests for reservation from customers are accepted uniformly, there is a case where the management efficiency drops and the profit decreases.
Namely, in order to obtain as much profit as possible in the case where a resource (a parking space) is provided to a customer in a minute increments like a parking lot or in the case where a piece rate of sales is low for example, it is necessary to increase a turnover or an availability factor of the parking space. However, if the request for reservation from a customer who is in a distant place is accepted without any limitations, the parking space that will be kept for the customer cannot be used until the customer arrives at the parking lot. In addition, it is possible that the customer will arrive lately due to an unexpected traffic jam. As a result, the turnover or the availability factor of the resource may be dropped, and the management efficiency may be lowered.
It is considered to rent the parking space that is kept for the customer to another customer until the former customer arrives at the parking lot. In that case, however, if the car of the latter customer does not go out of the parking space before the car of the former customer who made the reservation arrives at the parking lot, the former customer who made the reservation cannot use the parking space.
Furthermore, as described in Japanese unexamined patent publication No. 2002-236832, a method can be considered in which a reservation is accepted by a so-called semantic information network. In that case, however, the current system for providing a service has to be reconstructed so as to be adapted to the semantic information network. Such a reconstruction is a large scale and difficult. In addition, even if the semantic information network can be constructed for providing a service, there will be still a problem that a cost of administration is high. Accordingly, the use of the semantic information network is not realistic for a person who provides a service for a low unit price of sales.